different-cultures阅读.doc

1、精品文档What leads to the cultural difference?The cultures of the East and the West really distinguish each other a lot. Thisis because the culture systems are two separate systems on the whole.The originoftheeasternculturesis mainlyfromtwocountries:Chinaand India.Both of the two cultures are gestated b

2、y rivers. In China, the mother river is theYellow River while the Indian one is the Hindu River. These two cultures weredeveloped for several thousand years and formed their own styles. Then in DangDynastyofChina, the Chinese culturegraduallywent overseas toJapan,mixedintothe Japanese societyand sha

3、ped theJapanese culturenowadays. Though a bitdifferentfrom the Chinese one, it belongs to the same system.When the two mother rivers gave birth to the eastern culture, another famousculturewas broughtup on theMesopotamian Plain-theMesopotamian Civilization.This civilization later on developed into t

4、he cultures of the Ancient Greece andAncientRome. And thesetwo are well-knownas the base ofthe European culture.Likethe Chinese culture, the European one also crossed waters. When the colonists ofEnglandsettleddown inAmerica,theirculture went withthem overtheAtlanticOcean.So the American culture doe

5、snt distinguish from the European one a lot.At the same time, the difference of the language systems adds to the culturaldifferences. In the East, most languages belong to the pictographic language (seethe picturebelow)whiletheWesternlanguagesare mostly based on theLatin system,for example, the one

6、Im using to write this paper.Other factors like human race difference counts as well. But whats more, dueto thefardistanceand thesteepareas between theEastand West, the two culturesseldom communicateuntilrecentcenturies.So theygrew up totallyintheirown wayswith almost no interference from the other.

7、Pictographic charactersPart II How differently do people behave in daily life?Thedifferencesare everywhere.They affectpeople s ways of thinkingand theirviews of the world. Even in everyday life, the cultural differences show up fromthe moment the eyes are opened to the minute the dreams are invited.

8、In the following, Ill give some typical example of the differences.Section 1: GreetingGreeting is the first step to form a culture, because people begin to communicate with others. The individuals become a community.How do we Chinese greeteach other?Informally,ifwe meet an friendin thestreet,we are

9、used to say:“Hi, have you had your meal?”or“Where are you going?”. Whenit is the case of two gentlemen, they tend to shake hands.However, in the western countries, the above questions are just questions, not。1 欢迎下载精品文档greetingat all.They may thinkyou re invitingthem to dinnerifyou ask about theirmea

10、ls. Usually, theyll just give each other a smile or greet with a“Hi. ”. They llshake hands only in some formalsituations.By the way, Westernerscan leave a partyor meeting halls without a formal conge, nor should they shake hands with every attendee like most of us will do here.Section 2:Expressing g

11、ratitudeThinkofthe situationsbelow.Your mother isbusy in thekitchen.She suddenlyasksyou to fetch a bowl for her. You do so. Whatll your mothers response be? Probablyshell just continue doing the cooking. After a while, the dinner is ready. Yourmother hands you your bowl of rice. Whats your response?

12、 Probably just begin toeat.That s what I want to say. In Chinese families, we rarely say“Thank you ”to otherfamily members for receiving help or service. Neither will we say so between goodfriends. Its such an unpopular response that if you say it, the counterpart willthink you are treating him as a

13、 stranger, otherwise you are lacking of intimacy.But in the West, thankyou isone ofthe most frequentlyused sentences.Teacherswillthank a studentforanswering a question;husbands willthankhiswifefor makinga coffee.However, as an interesting phenomenon, its a custom to say thank you in Japan.No matteri

14、n familyoramong friends,Japanese chronicallyuse italltheday.Thisis probably the aberrance of the culture.Section 3 DiningThe ways people eat, that is, the table manner, really distinguish a lot. The reason for this is probably because of the different dining tools and menus.Easterners use chopsticks

15、, or sometimes even grasp rice straightly with hands asIndians do. The thin and long chopsticks cannot be used to cut food, so we usuallyuse our teeth to act as knives. We hold our food, meat or vegetable, with thechopsticks,send them to themouths, biteoffa partof itand remain the otherparton the ch

16、opsticks.That s theusualway we eat.Weare also used to holdup ourbowlswhen havingriceor soup. Japanese hold bowlstohave miso soup withoutspoons. Butall these habits are considered rude in the Western countries.The etiquette inthe West requests that when eating, bowls and platescannot leavethe tables.

17、Food shouldbe cut by knives to fitintothe mouths.Of course yourmouthcannot touchtheplatesor bowls.So theregularprocessis likethis.You cutyour。2 欢迎下载精品文档steak on the plate with fork and knife, send the meat cube into the mouth with fork and nothing will be returned back but the fork alone.Section 4 S

18、ymbolizingSymbolization is how people imagine or regard something. It actually reflects theway people think. Here I ll only discuss some symbolization that frequently appears in daily life.First is about the colors. We often give each color some meanings, because we feeldifferently when facing diffe

19、rent colors. So people always have preference whenchoosing colors of clothes, decorations, etc. In the APEC summit held in Shanghaiseveralyearsago,inthelastday, the presidentsfrom allovertheworldwore thetraditional Chinese Dang suits and took a photo together. The colors of the suitswere chosenby th

20、emselvesfreely.However,it s quiteinterestingtofindthatmostEasternerschose red whilemost ofthewesternerspreferredblue.To explainthis,it s easy torealizethatwhat redmeans isalmost oppositein theEastand theWest.Red means luck,fortunehere.WeChinese oftenuse thiscolortodecorateinfestivals,such as red lan

21、terns, red Chinese nodes, red bangers. But red stands for blood,revolutions in the West. So the presidents avoided wearing this unlucky color.Anotherinterestingdiscoveryisaboutthe dragons.Inthe East,dragonsareimaginedas something likesnakeand areflowinginthe skyformost ofthe time.The dragonis said t

22、o have the face of the horse, the horns of the deer, the ears of the ox,the body of the snake, theclawsoftheeagleand squama of the fish.Weregarddragonas God and say that we Chinese are the offspring of the dragon. The God of Dragonsof the four seas can charge the rainfalls, so we sometimes also call

23、 them the Godof the water or rain.Butin the West, people thinkdragonsas dinosaurs,whichcanstand on the ground with feet and fly with huge wings. They lay eggs just likedinosaurs.The dragonsoftheWest have theabilitytoeruptfire,insteadofwater.The fire can destroy everything so the dragons are not welc

24、omed at all. They evenbecome the symbol of the Devil.Part III What can we do to treat the culture gap?Now we have seen that there exists such a huge gap between eastern culture and western one. Then what should we do to face this gap in the gradually globalizing world?Firstly,we cannot denyany ofthe

25、cultures.Every nationhasitsowncharacteristicsand it s mainlythroughitsculturethatwe firstbegin toknow thenation and itscharacteristics.So we cannotsay thatthiscultureorcustomisrightand that is wrong. Equal respect should be attached to every culture in the world,。3 欢迎下载精品文档even to those that are not

26、 in existence any more.Next, we should get to learn how to coordinate the different cultures. We saythe world is becoming smaller and smaller. More foreigners come and go everyday.When it is in the same country, the same city, the same neighborhood, the culturalcollision is expected to be more serious. So we should try to avoid this happe